"Possessed" is good for the performance of Joan Crawford as Louise, a nurse who falls in love for a sadistic and self-centered David (Van Heflin). Some reviewers say that it's Joan's best performance, and she sure does good things, but it's hard to believe a woman would fall in love so madly for a man who finds such visible fun in despising her completely, and the plot is always menaced by an overdose of kitsch. The photography is marvelous and the movie shows many signs of the talent of the director, Curtis Bernardt, but are there too many psychiatric explanations and they spoil the whole, leaving little for the imagination of the spectator. They're the worst default in the whole movie.